Debate Over P vs. NP Proof Highlights Web Collaboration - NYTimes.com

This is big for ecommerce: "P versus NP has enormous practical and economic importance, because modern cryptography is based on the assumption, which is workable so far, that P does not equal NP. In other words, there are problems that are impossible for computers to solve, but for which the solutions are easily recognizable. If these problems were shown to be solvable, that could undermine modern cryptography, which could paralyze electronic commerce and digital privacy because transactions would no longer be secure."

This sounds like the Dilbert Principle to me -

“The difference between the alchemists and the chemists was that the printing press was used to coordinate peer review,” he said. “The printing press didn’t cause the scientific revolution, but it wouldn’t have been possible without it.”